Health Justice and Maternity Care
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Health Justice and Maternity Care: Recognizing Social Suffering during Pregnancy, Childbirth and Early Parenthood
IRAS ID
311908
Contact name
Ditte Madsen
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Exeter
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 1 months, 29 days
Research summary
Health inequalities associated with the perinatal period (pregnancy, childbirth and early parenthood) are starkly demonstrated by maternal deaths in the United Kingdom. With suicide the leading cause of death, mortality rates are increasing overall while also widening between those living in deprived areas and those living in affluent areas. Despite overwhelming evidence that social inequalities cause inequalities in health, however, suffering in the health care context is still widely understood in individualised and medicalised terms. This study will contribute to the field of public policy by making sense of how policies and interventions designed to reduce health inequalities in the perinatal period are experienced by the most disadvantaged service users. From this perspective, the project aims to make sense of how such polices might not only support people who are suffering due to social inequalities but potentially worsen the experiences of social inequality by producing shame, stigma or disempowerment.
The project will examine four policy interventions aimed at reducing health inequalities: the provision of midwife continuity of carer, perinatal mental health support, smoking cessation and co-production of policies with service users with lived experience. On the one hand, it will focus on how these policies have been developed at a national level through analysis of policy documents and scholarly research into health inequalities. On the other hand, it will consider how these policies shape health practices by examining how they have been implemented within an NHS Trust in Cornwall. The research is primarily based on interpretation of policy documents and scholarly research in public policy, health science and social and political theory. However, it also incorporates a small but integral qualitative study based on interviews and observations with former service users, midwives, policymakers and service-user groups, which will orient the researcher’s wider analysis.
REC name
Wales REC 4
REC reference
23/WA/0246
Date of REC Opinion
13 Sep 2023
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion